MyMedR

Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 302 in total

Abstract:

Sort:

Fulltext A Cross-Cultural Examination of SNS Usage Intensity and Managing Interpersonal Relationships Online: The Role of Culture and the Autonomous-Related Self-Construal

Lee SL, Kim JA, Golden KJ, Kim JH, Park MS

Front Psychol, 2016;7:376.
PMID: 27148100 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00376

Perception of the autonomy and relatedness of the self may be influenced by one's experiences and social expectations within a particular cultural setting. The present research examined the role of culture and the Autonomous-Related self-construal in predicting for different aspects of Social Networking Sites (SNS) usage in three Asian countries, especially focusing on those aspects serving interpersonal goals. Participants in this cross-cultural study included 305 university students from Malaysia (n = 105), South Korea (n = 113), and China (n = 87). The study explored specific social and interpersonal behaviors on SNS, such as browsing the contacts' profiles, checking for updates, and improving contact with SNS contacts, as well as the intensity of SNS use, hypothesizing that those with high intensity of use in the Asian context may be doing so to achieve the social goal of maintaining contact and keeping updated with friends. Two scales measuring activities on other users' profiles and contact with friends' profiles were developed and validated. As predicted, some cross-cultural differences were found. Koreans were more likely to use SNS to increase contact but tended to spend less time browsing contacts' profiles than the Malaysians and Chinese. The intensity of SNS use differed between the countries as well, where Malaysians reported higher intensity than Koreans and Chinese. Consistent with study predictions, Koreans were found with the highest Autonomous-Related self-construal scores. The Autonomous-Related self-construal predicted SNS intensity. The findings suggest that cultural contexts, along with the way the self is construed in different cultures, may encourage different types of SNS usage. The authors discuss study implications and suggest future research directions.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Hybridised Intelligent Technique for the diagnosis of medical diseases

Abdu Masanawa Sagir, Saratha Sathasivam

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2017;25(2):425-440.
MyJurnal

Medical diagnosis is the process of determining which disease or medical condition explains a person’s determinable signs and symptoms. Diagnosis of most diseases is very expensive as many tests are required for predictions. This paper aims to introduce an improved hybrid approach for training the adaptive network based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). It incorporates hybrid learning algorithms least square estimates with Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm using analytic derivation for computation of Jacobian matrix, as well as code optimisation technique, which indexes membership functions. The goal is to investigate how certain diseases are affected by patient’s characteristics and measurement such as abnormalities or a decision about the presence or absence of a disease. In order to achieve an accurate diagnosis at this complex stage of symptom analysis, the physician may need efficient diagnosis system to classify and predict patient condition by using an adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) pre-processed by grid partitioning. The proposed hybridised intelligent technique was tested with Statlog heart disease and Hepatitis disease datasets obtained from the University of California at Irvine’s (UCI) machine learning repository. The robustness of the performance measuring total accuracy, sensitivity and specificity was examined. In comparison, the proposed method was found to achieve superior
performance when compared to some other related existing methods.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Novel International Partnership for Actionable Evidence on Urban Health in Latin America: LAC-Urban Health and SALURBAL

Diez Roux AV, Slesinski SC, Alazraqui M, Caiaffa WT, Frenz P, Jordán Fuchs R, et al.

Glob Chall, 2019 Apr;3(4):1800013.
PMID: 31565372 DOI: 10.1002/gch2.201800013

This article describes the origins and characteristics of an interdisciplinary multinational collaboration aimed at promoting and disseminating actionable evidence on the drivers of health in cities in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Network for Urban Health in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Wellcome Trust funded SALURBAL (Salud Urbana en América Latina, or Urban Health in Latin America) Project. Both initiatives have the goals of supporting urban policies that promote health and health equity in cities of the region while at the same time generating generalizable knowledge for urban areas across the globe. The processes, challenges, as well as the lessons learned to date in launching and implementing these collaborations, are described. By leveraging the unique features of the Latin American region (one of the most urbanized areas of the world with some of the most innovative urban policies), the aim is to produce generalizable knowledge about the links between urbanization, health, and environments and to identify effective ways to organize, design, and govern cities to improve health, reduce health inequalities, and maximize environmental sustainability in cities all over the world.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Practitioner's Toolkit for Insulin Motivation in Adults with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Evidence-Based Recommendations from an International Expert Panel

Kalra S, Bajaj S, Sharma SK, Priya G, Baruah MP, Sanyal D, et al.

Diabetes Ther, 2020 Mar;11(3):585-606.
PMID: 31981212 DOI: 10.1007/s13300-020-00764-7

AIM: To develop an evidence-based expert group opinion on the role of insulin motivation to overcome insulin distress during different stages of insulin therapy and to propose a practitioner's toolkit for insulin motivation in the management of diabetes mellitus (DM).
BACKGROUND: Insulin distress, an emotional response of the patient to the suggested use of insulin, acts as a major barrier to insulin therapy in the management of DM. Addressing patient-, physician- and drug-related factors is important to overcome insulin distress. Strengthening of communication between physicians and patients with diabetes and enhancing the patients' coping skills are prerequisites to create a sense of comfort with the use of insulin. Insulin motivation is key to achieving targeted goals in diabetes care. A group of endocrinologists came together at an international meeting held in India to develop tool kits that would aid a practitioner in implementing insulin motivation strategies at different stages of the journey through insulin therapy, including pre-initiation, initiation, titration and intensification. During the meeting, emphasis was placed on the challenges and limitations faced by both physicians and patients with diabetes during each stage of the journey through insulinization.
REVIEW RESULTS: After review of evidence and discussions, the expert group provided recommendations on strategies for improved insulin acceptance, empowering behavior change in patients with DM, approaches for motivating patients to initiate and maintain insulin therapy and best practices for insulin motivation at the pre-initiation, initiation, titration and intensification stages of insulin therapy.
CONCLUSIONS: In the management of DM, bringing in positive behavioral change by motivating the patient to improve treatment adherence helps overcome insulin distress and achieve treatment goals.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Scoping review of the effectiveness of control interventions of human and Canine Rabies in an effort to Rationalise the One Health Approach

Nur Asheila Abdul Taib, Razitasham Safii

Borneo Epidemiology Journal, 2020;1(1):16-34.
MyJurnal

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), rabies is one of the 18 neglected tropical diseases, together with dengue, leprosy, and trachoma, among others. Despite being a vaccine-preventable disease, the latest estimate of annual human rabies mortality from a 2015 study is as high as 59,000 throughout 150 countries. In human rabies, more than 95% of the cases are due to dog bites, making the elimination of canine rabies a global priority by fighting the disease at its animal source. World Health Organization (WHO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) have warranted the One Health framework with the objective of complete eradication of dog-related human rabies by the year 2030. In an effort to rationalise the One Health approach, this scoping review found 17 studies on assessing the effectiveness of control interventions of human and canine rabies. Different strategies were implemented based on the endemicity of rabies in a particular country. Overall, the combined strategies using the One Health approach, which allows effectiveparticipation and communication between different agencies, have shown promising results in reducing rabies cases. These strategies will hopefully realise the goal in the Global Strategic Plan to achieve zero canine-mediated human rabies death by the year2030.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Secure, Intelligent, and Smart-Sensing Approach for Industrial System Automation and Transmission over Unsecured Wireless Networks

Shahzad A, Lee M, Xiong NN, Jeong G, Lee YK, Choi JY, et al.

Sensors (Basel), 2016;16(3).
PMID: 26950129 DOI: 10.3390/s16030322

In Industrial systems, Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, the pseudo-transport layer of the distributed network protocol (DNP3) performs the functions of the transport layer and network layer of the open systems interconnection (OSI) model. This study used a simulation design of water pumping system, in-which the network nodes are directly and wirelessly connected with sensors, and are monitored by the main controller, as part of the wireless SCADA system. This study also intends to focus on the security issues inherent in the pseudo-transport layer of the DNP3 protocol. During disassembly and reassembling processes, the pseudo-transport layer keeps track of the bytes sequence. However, no mechanism is available that can verify the message or maintain the integrity of the bytes in the bytes received/transmitted from/to the data link layer or in the send/respond from the main controller/sensors. To properly and sequentially keep track of the bytes, a mechanism is required that can perform verification while bytes are received/transmitted from/to the lower layer of the DNP3 protocol or the send/respond to/from field sensors. For security and byte verification purposes, a mechanism needs to be proposed for the pseudo-transport layer, by employing cryptography algorithm. A dynamic choice security buffer (SB) is designed and employed during the security development. To achieve the desired goals of the proposed study, a pseudo-transport layer stack model is designed using the DNP3 protocol open library and the security is deployed and tested, without changing the original design.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A Statistical Study on the Development of Metronidazole-Chitosan-Alginate Nanocomposite Formulation Using the Full Factorial Design

Sabbagh HAK, Hussein-Al-Ali SH, Hussein MZ, Abudayeh Z, Ayoub R, Abudoleh SM

Polymers (Basel), 2020 Apr 01;12(4).
PMID: 32244671 DOI: 10.3390/polym12040772

The goal of this study was to develop and statistically optimize the metronidazole (MET), chitosan (CS) and alginate (Alg) nanoparticles (NP) nanocomposites (MET-CS-AlgNPs) using a (21 × 31 × 21) × 3 = 36 full factorial design (FFD) to investigate the effect of chitosan and alginate polymer concentrations and calcium chloride (CaCl2) concentration ondrug loading efficiency(LE), particle size and zeta potential. The concentration of CS, Alg and CaCl2 were taken as independent variables, while drug loading, particle size and zeta potential were taken as dependent variables. The study showed that the loading efficiency and particle size depend on the CS, Alg and CaCl2 concentrations, whereas zeta potential depends only on the Alg and CaCl2 concentrations. The MET-CS-AlgNPs nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and in vitro drug release studies. XRD datashowed that the crystalline properties of MET changed to an amorphous-like pattern when the nanocomposites were formed.The XRD pattern of MET-CS-AlgNPs showed reflections at 2θ = 14.2° and 22.1°, indicating that the formation of the nanocompositesprepared at the optimum conditions havea mean diameter of (165±20) nm, with a MET loading of (46.0 ± 2.1)% and a zeta potential of (-9.2 ± 0.5) mV.The FTIR data of MET-CS-AlgNPs showed some bands of MET, such as 3283, 1585 and 1413 cm-1, confirming the presence of the drug in the MET-CS-AlgNPs nanocomposites. The TGA for the optimized sample of MET-CS-AlgNPs showed a 70.2% weight loss compared to 55.3% for CS-AlgNPs, and the difference is due to the incorporation of MET in the CS-AlgNPs for the formation of MET-CS-AlgNPs nanocomposites. The release of MET from the nanocomposite showed sustained-release properties, indicating the presence of an interaction between MET and the polymer. The nanocomposite shows a smooth surface and spherical shape. The release profile of MET from its MET-CS-AlgNPs nanocomposites was found to be governed by the second kinetic model (R2 between 0.956-0.990) with more than 90% release during the first 50 h, which suggests that the release of the MET drug can be extended or prolonged via the nanocomposite formulation.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
A case of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and precious pregnancy

Abdul Satar NF, Cheong EV, Jasmin LPY, Ngu MR

Med J Malaysia, 2020 11;75(6):738-741.
PMID: 33219188

Cancer during pregnancy is a rare condition. We report here a case of a lady diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) at University of Malaya Medical Centre during her first pregnancy conceived via In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). A multidisciplinary (MDT) meeting among Oncology, Obstetrics, Rheumatology and Otolaryngology teams was conducted to discuss her treatment options. She opted for treatment with Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). This case illustrates the unique challenges in the oncological management of a patient diagnosed with NPC during pregnancy. It also serves as a reminder that the use of CAM in cancer patients is prevalent. It is important for doctors to inquire about use of CAM and to be well-informed about it. Transparent communication and taking cognizance of the goals and concerns of the patients are essential in delivering patient-centred care.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A comparative study on standard, modified and chaotic firefly algorithms

Hong, Choon Ong, Tilahun, Surafel Luleseged, Tang, Suey Shya

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2015;23(2):251-269.
MyJurnal

Many studies have been carried out using different metaheuristic algorithms on optimisation problems in various fields like engineering design, economics and routes planning. In the real world, resources and time are scarce. Thus the goals of optimisation algorithms are to optimise these available resources. Different metaheuristic algorithms are available. The firefly algorithm is one of the recent metaheuristic algorithms that is used in many applications; it is also modified and hybridised to improve its performance. In this paper, we compare the Standard Firefly Algorithm, the Elitist Firefly Algorithm, also called the Modified Firefly Algorithm with the Chaotic Firefly Algorithm, which embeds chaos maps in the Standard Firefly Algorithm. The Modified Firefly Algorithm differs from the Standard Firefly Algorithm in such a way that the global optimum solution at a particular iteration will not move randomly but in a direction that is chosen from randomly generated directions that can improve its performance. If none of these directions improves its performance, then the algorithm will not be updated. On the other hand, the Chaotic Firefly Algorithm tunes the parameters of the algorithms for the purpose of increasing the global search mobility i.e. to improve the attractiveness of fireflies. In our study, we found that the Chaotic Firefly Algorithms using three different chaotic maps do not perform as well as the Modified Firefly Algorithms; however, at least one or two of the Chaotic Firefly Algorithms outperform the Standard Firefly Algorithm under the given accuracy and efficiency tests.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A comprehensive study of data collection schemes using mobile sinks in wireless sensor networks

Khan AW, Abdullah AH, Anisi MH, Bangash JI

Sensors (Basel), 2014 Feb 05;14(2):2510-48.
PMID: 24504107 DOI: 10.3390/s140202510

Recently sink mobility has been exploited in numerous schemes to prolong the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Contrary to traditional WSNs where sensory data from sensor field is ultimately sent to a static sink, mobile sink-based approaches alleviate energy-holes issues thereby facilitating balanced energy consumption among nodes. In mobility scenarios, nodes need to keep track of the latest location of mobile sinks for data delivery. However, frequent propagation of sink topological updates undermines the energy conservation goal and therefore should be controlled. Furthermore, controlled propagation of sinks' topological updates affects the performance of routing strategies thereby increasing data delivery latency and reducing packet delivery ratios. This paper presents a taxonomy of various data collection/dissemination schemes that exploit sink mobility. Based on how sink mobility is exploited in the sensor field, we classify existing schemes into three classes, namely path constrained, path unconstrained, and controlled sink mobility-based schemes. We also organize existing schemes based on their primary goals and provide a comparative study to aid readers in selecting the appropriate scheme in accordance with their particular intended applications and network dynamics. Finally, we conclude our discussion with the identification of some unresolved issues in pursuit of data delivery to a mobile sink.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A critical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy and ecosystems and opportunities for circular economy strategies

Ibn-Mohammed T, Mustapha KB, Godsell J, Adamu Z, Babatunde KA, Akintade DD, et al.

Resour Conserv Recycl, 2021 Jan;164:105169.
PMID: 32982059 DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105169

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on the 11th of March 2020, but the world is still reeling from its aftermath. Originating from China, cases quickly spread across the globe, prompting the implementation of stringent measures by world governments in efforts to isolate cases and limit the transmission rate of the virus. These measures have however shattered the core sustaining pillars of the modern world economies as global trade and cooperation succumbed to nationalist focus and competition for scarce supplies. Against this backdrop, this paper presents a critical review of the catalogue of negative and positive impacts of the pandemic and proffers perspectives on how it can be leveraged to steer towards a better, more resilient low-carbon economy. The paper diagnosed the danger of relying on pandemic-driven benefits to achieving sustainable development goals and emphasizes a need for a decisive, fundamental structural change to the dynamics of how we live. It argues for a rethink of the present global economic growth model, shaped by a linear economy system and sustained by profiteering and energy-gulping manufacturing processes, in favour of a more sustainable model recalibrated on circular economy (CE) framework. Building on evidence in support of CE as a vehicle for balancing the complex equation of accomplishing profit with minimal environmental harms, the paper outlines concrete sector-specific recommendations on CE-related solutions as a catalyst for the global economic growth and development in a resilient post-COVID-19 world.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A goal programming model for portfolio optimisation problem in fuzzy environment

Mokhtar, M., Shuib, A., Mohamad, D.

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2017;25(2):593-606.
MyJurnal

Portfolio optimisation is one of the most crucial issues in investment decision-making and has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. Traditionally, the portfolio optimisation models are formulated based on the assumption that investors have complete information on the distribution of random returns. However, in real life case, this is not possible since decisions have to be made under uncertainty. This paper deals with a fuzzy portfolio optimisation problem in which returns and turnover rates of securities are represented by fuzzy variables. A goal programming model is proposed to optimise three objectives: maximisation of portfolio return, maximisation of liquidity and minimisation of the portfolio risk. The cardinality constraints, floor and ceiling constraints are also taken into consideration. Finally, a numerical experiment using real data is conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the model.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A harmless evil: Giant fungating benign breast mass in an adolescent mimicking malignancy - Case report

Heng SSL, Yahya MM, Sulaiman WAW, Saad AZM

Int J Surg Case Rep, 2021 Mar;80:105202.
PMID: 33500231 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijscr.2020.10.096

INTRODUCTION: Juvenile giant fibroadenoma is a rare type of fibroadenoma characterized by rapid growth of a breast tumor in an adolescent. Benign in nature, they rarely present as fungating and ulcerating tumors. Benign tumors masquerading as malignancies are surgical conundrums. No co nsensus exists yet on the management of these cases. We aim to discuss the dilemma in managing a bleeding, fungating giant fibroadenoma in an adolescent female and highlight risks of alternative therapies.
PRESENTATION OF CASE: A 19-year-old lady presented with a bleeding, fungating breast mass worsened with topical herbal concoction. Examination revealed a 10 × 15 cm fungating breast mass that obliterated her nipple- areolar complex (NAC). Computed Tomography (CT) scan reported a huge heterogeneously enhancing mass 10.6 × 14.5 × 15.1 cm with loss of normal fat plane with the overlying skin but a clear fat plane with the pectoralis muscle posteriorly.
DISCUSSION: Giant breast masses that fungate and ulcerate usually indicate a sinister pathology. Traditional remedies have been reported to exacerbate growth. In cases where most of the breast parenchyma and NAC has been destroyed, it is no longer possible to proceed with breast conserving techniques. Breast reconstruction is crucial in adolescents and should be tailored to the patient's existing breast size as well as body habitus.
CONCLUSION: In juvenile giant fibroadenomas where breast parenchyma and NAC has been destroyed, breast reconstruction is the goal. The lack of consensus in both diagnosis and management further compounds the difficulty in dealing with this sensitive population. Awareness needs to be raised regarding negative effects related to traditional medicine.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A human-inspired collective intelligence model for multi-agent based system

Gunasekaran, S.S., Ahmad, M.S., Mostafa, S.A.

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2017;25(110):39-54.
MyJurnal

The collaborative and competitive nature of multi-agent systems (MAS) is visible through the simple social mode of communication that emerges between human-agent interactions or agent-to-agent interactions. A simple mode of communication involves the fundamental actions carried out by individual agents in achieving their desired goal. The sum of these achievements contribute to the overall group goal. Comparatively, the collective intelligence (CI) of a MAS simply means that these agents should work together to produce better solutions than those made possible when using the traditional approach. In designing MAS with CI properties, formalisation of a higher level deliberation process is essential. A high level deliberation process refers to the judgement comprehension of tasks, reasoning and problem solving and planning. In this paper, we propose our Collective Intelligence Model, CIM, which has the potential to control and coordinate a high-level deliberation process of a MAS. CIM is inspired by the emerging processes of controlled discussion, argumentation and negotiation between two or more intelligent human agents. These processes screen and validate the deliberation process through a crossfertilisation approach. The emergent property of the cross-fertilised ideas results in an intelligent solution that solves optimisation-related tasks.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A multi-disciplinary team approach to klüver-bucy syndrome: a case report

Kanchan Thadani, Chee Kok Yoon, Hanis Aminah John Mohamad, Norzaini Rose Mohd Zain, Chan Pek Har, Noor Jannah Ariffin

Malaysian Journal of Psychiatry, 2018;27(2):0-0.
MyJurnal

Klüver-Bucy syndrome was first diagnosed in humans in 1955, after a group
of people who had experienced temporal lobectomy. It is a rare
neuropsychiatry disease and of which little is understood about its
pathophysiological processes. Here we present a 60-year-old man seen in the
outpatient psychiatric department in a tertiary hospital in Kuala Lumpur
who presented to us with hyper sexuality, impulsivity, docility, amnesia and
hyperphagia for the past 10 months. He was diagnosed with Herpes Simplex
Virus with encephalitis 18 months ago and was shown to have bilateral
meningoencephalitis of his temporal lobes. Thus, a diagnosis of Klüver-Bucy
was made. We have taken a multi-disciplinary team approach to treat his
illness and specific goals has been laid out in each discipline. A written
consent has been taken by the patient and his family for the publication of
this report.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A non-clinical randomised controlled trial to assess the impact of pharmaceutical care intervention on satisfaction level of newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus patients in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal

Upadhyay DK, Mohamed Ibrahim MI, Mishra P, Alurkar VM

BMC Health Serv Res, 2015;15:57.
PMID: 25888828 DOI: 10.1186/s12913-015-0715-5

Patient satisfaction is the ultimate goal of healthcare system which can be achieved from good patient-healthcare professional relationship and quality of healthcare services provided. Study was conducted to determine the baseline satisfaction level of newly diagnosed diabetics and to explore the impact of pharmaceutical care intervention on patients' satisfaction during their follow-ups in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A railway rescheduling model with priority setting

Shuib, A., Alwadood, Z.

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2017;25(2):649-660.
MyJurnal

This paper presents a mathematical approach to solve railway rescheduling problems. The approach assumes that the trains are able to resume their journey after a given time frame of disruption whereby The train that experiences disruption and trains affected by the incident are rescheduled. The approach employed mathematical model to prioritise certain types of train according the railway operator’s requirement. A pre-emptive goal programming model was adapted to find an optimal solution that satisfies the operational constraints and the company’s stated goals. Initially, the model minimises the total service delay of all trains while adhering to the minimum headway requirement and track capacity. Subsequently, it maximises the train service reliability by only considering the trains with delay time window of five minutes or less. The model uses MATLAB R2014a software which automatically generates the optimal solution of the problem based on the input matrix of constraints. An experiment with three incident scenarios on a double-track railway of local network was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed model. The new provisional timetable was produced in short computing time and the model was able to prioritise desired train schedule.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A review of malaria research in Malaysia

William T, Menon J

Med J Malaysia, 2014 Aug;69 Suppl A:82-7.
PMID: 25417955 MyJurnal

One hundred and thirteen articles related to Malaria were found in a search through a database dedicated to indexing all original data relevant to medicine published in Malaysia between the years 2000-2013. Thirty eight articles were selected and reviewed on the basis of clinical relevance and future research implications. The epidemiology of malaria has undergone a significant change over the last decade with P. knowlesi, formerly a relatively unknown simian parasite rapidly becoming the most predominant malaria species to infect humans in Malaysia. The epidemiology, clinical features, diagnostic methods and treatment for P. knowlesi infection are described in these studies. In Malaysia, imported malaria from foreigners also poses a challenge. In view of these changes, new strategies on malaria control need to be devised and implemented, and treatment regimens need to be redefined to help Malaysia achieve the goal of malaria elimination by the year 2020.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A review on climate change and Malaysia’s actions

Narinderjeet Kaur, Syed Sharizman Syed Abdul Rahim, Zahir Izuan Azhar, Mohd Yusof Ibrahim, Mohammad Saffree Jeffree, Mohd Rohaizat Hassan

Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2019;15(106):72-72.
MyJurnal

Introduction: One of the biggest global health threats of the 21st century is climate change It is so catastrophic that the climate action has been given a platform as it is the 13th goal of the 17 United Nations Sustainable developmen-tal goals (SDG). This review seeks to understand the factors causing climate change, followed by understanding the impact it has on individual and population health. We also identify the strategies to control and prevent further cli-mate change. Methods: Reviews of local and international articles from the past ten years was conducted. The focus of the review was the causes, health effects as well as strategies. Data base used was Pro Quest. Results: This re-view identified that the main contributor to climate change are man-made activities such as fossil fuels combustion, livestock farming, and deforestation. This change in climate has many repercussions from mass migrations, increase communicable diseases as well as an increase in extreme weather events and natural disasters. All this eventually leads to the deterioration of individual and population health. Strengthening adaptivity to climate-related hazard, climate change integration into national policies, education, awareness-raising, impact reduction and early warning are actions that are present in Malaysia to manage this crisis. Conclusion: Climate change is occurring globally, and its presence can no longer be denied. Actions have been put forth, but only when its importance and impact is taken seriously will the positive changes be sustainable.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals
Fulltext A rule-based energy management scheme for long-term optimal capacity planning of grid-independent microgrid optimized by multi-objective grasshopper optimization algorithm

Bukar AL, Tan CW, Yiew LK, Ayop R, Tan WS

Energy Convers Manag, 2020 Oct 01;221:113161.
PMID: 32834297 DOI: 10.1016/j.enconman.2020.113161

Off-grid electrification of remote communities using sustainable energy systems (SESs) is a requisite for realizing sustainable development goals. Nonetheless, the capacity planning of the SESs is challenging as it needs to fulfil the fluctuating demand from a long-term perspective, in addition to the intermittency and unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources (RESs). Owing to the nonlinear and non-convex nature of the capacity planning problem, an efficient technique must be employed to achieve a cost-effective system. Existing techniques are, subject to some constraints on the derivability and continuity of the objective function, prone to premature convergence, computationally demanding, follows rigorous procedures to fine-tune the algorithm parameters in different applications, and often do not offer a fair balance during the exploitation and exploration phase of the optimization process. Furthermore, the literature review indicates that researchers often do not implement and examine the energy management scheme (EMS) of a microgrid while computing for the capacity planning problem of microgrids. This paper proposes a rule-based EMS (REMS) optimized by a nature-inspired grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA) for long-term capacity planning of a grid-independent microgrid incorporating a wind turbine, a photovoltaic, a battery (BT) bank and a diesel generator (

D

g
e
n

). In which, a rule-based algorithm is used to implement an EMS to prioritize the usage of RES and coordinate the power flow of the proposed microgrid components. Subsequently, an attempt is made to explore and confirm the efficiency of the proposed REMS incorporated with GOA. The ultimate goal of the objective function is to minimize the cost of energy (COE) and the deficiency of power supply probability (DPSP). The performance of the REMS is examined via a long-term simulation study to ascertain the REMS resiliency and to ensure the operating limit of the BT storage is not violated. The result of the GOA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and a cuckoo search algorithm (CSA). The simulation results indicate that the proposed technique's superiority is confirmed in terms of convergence to the optimal solution. The simulation results confirm that the proposed REMS has contributed to better adoption of a cleaner energy production system, as the scheme significantly reduces fuel consumption,

CO

2

emission and COE by 92.4%, 92.3% and 79.8%, respectively as compared to the conventional

D

g
e
n

. The comparative evaluation of the algorithms shows that REMS-GOA yields a better result as it offers the least COE (objective function), at $0.3656/kW h, as compared to the REMS-CSA at $0.3662/kW h and REMS-PSO at $0.3674/kW h, for the desired DPSP of 0%. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to highlight the effect of uncertainties on the system inputs that may arise in the future.

Matched MeSH terms: Goals

Filters

Please provide feedback to Administrator (afdal@afpm.org.my)

External Links